Bluefin Labs and SocialGuide Push Competing Technology to Make Social Data Useful to TV Networks and Advertisers

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It is not even Thanksgiving and it has already been a busy November for Bluefin Labs, a Cambridge, MA-based provider of analytics gleaned from the wealth of comments in the social sphere about television shows. Bluefin Labs, backed by Acacia Woods Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and others, was among the startups presenting their ideas to judges during the ad:tech New York digital marketing conference, which ran through Nov. 10.

Bluefin Labs gathers data based on comments shared publicly via social media about television shows. In addition to the number of tweets and status updates that mention shows, the three-year-old company collects anonymous demographic information about the people who make the comments. Bluefin Labs and others such as SocialGuide in Brooklyn are packaging that data for advertisers and television networks to use.

Bluefin Labs’s Jack Flanagan, vice president of sales, gave the winning pitch at ad:tech in the social media category, besting native New York startups Murmur, Taykey, and Percolate. This follows Deb Roy, CEO and co-founder of Bluefin Labs, introducing his company to the city at the NY Tech Meetup on Nov. 2.

But as Bluefin Labs heads home in victory, SocialGuide—which raised $1.5 million in April from angel investors—is busy preparing a new … Next Page »